Featured works: "Ex tempore 4," "Solo für Klaxylovier und kochende Planeten Berührung 1," "Anrufung," Hab zwei Flügel und kann nicht fliegen Kleine Ballade," "Molto Secco," "33 Jahre später." Hermann Keller: "I improvised in public for the first time in 1962, which was still during my school years. Ever since that time, improvisation has been a part of my life. The oldest recording was made in 1976. Manfred Schulze, although repeatedly selected as Europe's best baritone saxophonist, unfortunately did not become very well known outside the GDR. I played music with him until his serious illness made playing impossible (in 1991, irrevocably), and I learned an incredible amount from him. He especially maintained that one should not try to arrive at a credible imitation of American jazz or West European avant-garde, but should search for one's own expressive possibilities." Performed by: Hermann Keller, Uwe Kropinski, Jurgen Kupke, Antje Messerschmidt, Dietrich Petzold, and Manfred Schulze.

Performed by Antje Messerschmidt, violin; Tomas Bächli, Hermann Keller, pianos. "Hermann Keller has been a freelance composer, pianist and improviser since 1981. On this release his compositions explore arcs of tension -- clashes of major and minor, Schumannesque cross-rhythms -- and the tension between improvisation and composition, when genuine discoveries are made in the course of playing the piano."

Featured works: Hermann Keller (b. 1945): Concerto for Piano and 13 Instruments; Sonata for String Trio and Piano; Scene for solo trombone, part 2; Scenes for Violinist (e) and Pianist(e). Performed by Antje Messerschmidt (violin); Hermann Keller (piano); Martin Flade (viola); Ralph-Raimund (cello); Matthias Jann (trombone); Ensemble Chronophonie, Manuel Nawri (conductor). "Hermann Keller is the prototype of a circumspect and restless experimenter, an improviser who turns out unprecedented inventions while holding his audience in thrall. One of his favorite occupations is to play ex tempore at the piano, attacking the keys and the body of the instrument in veritable transports of madness. Anything that can be coaxed and twisted from the instrument is brought to bear on his music. There are bonus features as well, the most familiar being preparations, i.e. distorting the piano sound with such implements as erasers, screws, mallets or cymbals. He works with cluster bars, fingernails, fists, elbows -- the entire body, it would seem. He claims that he has never laid eyes on a Cagean prepared piano, but of course he knows the relevant Cage recordings. Henry Cowell, John Cage and Hermann Keller, according to the composer and piano preparer Hans Rempel, form a single a line of evolution. Rempel is right: over the years Keller has experimented ceaselessly with preparation and produced truly evolutionary achievements."